Cruisers

[Richard Saunders]

Originally posted by The Oz:

That bit about the mesons decaying all the way to the target was someone else's misinterpretation of something I said about the decay of the mesons =at the target=. I agree with Savage that there cannot be a "trail of decaying mesons" all the way from the gun to the target, because as you point out, that would make deep meson gun sites impossible, and we know from canon that they are possible. [/QB][/QUOTE]

Totaly of topic.
How does a meson receiver work (if it goes through anything how does it interreact with something to send/recieve a message), I'm assumming it dosnt decay at the reciever.

Deep meson sites would have to be basicaly buried ships without jump drive and maneuver 1, but they would be a ship with a spinal mount in a cavern big enough to turn to any direction.
Think of the difficulty of supplying power to a gun that can fire in any of 360*360 degrees.

BYE.

 

[Rupert Boleyn]

Originally posted by TheDS:

In MT, a gigantic missile salvo is worthless against a big ship. In TNE, it's devestating. In MT, PAWS and Meson guns can be mounted into bays, in TNE, they're really not effective. most targets are going to have a basic meson screen and sme armor to protect against them. So you HAVE to make large spinal mounts.

Actually, that’s not entirely true in TNE. In Battlerider missile salvos are really deadly, but in TNE or Brilliant Lances they’re only deadly if the victim wasn’t designed to handle them, or when several large salvos hit one after another. This is because they can’t do a great deal of damage to a very big and well armoured ship, so they scrub off sensors and communications arrays. The answer is to have plenty of comms arrays under armour (so they can be deployed after the missile strike has finished) and sensor drones for them to communicate with.

In the original TNE rules, you could make a giant laser that would render giant PAWS and mesons unnecessary. A big laser goes right through armor and sand like it's not there, and can fire at very high rates, giving really good bonuses to hit. The answer was to impose a limit on laser power, basically religating them to turrets.

Well, the energy cap is simpler than the other fix, which would’ve been to make their penetration proportional to the square root of discharge energy, like everything else. Actually, IME really big lasers tended not to have as big a rate of fire as one might like because the powerplants ended up too big.

 

[Jame]

Ummm, this topic is about cruisers, not about meson guns and PAWS.

To try to begin moving back there, how often would the various types of cruisers carry such heavy weapons?

 

[rancke]

Originally posted by Jame:
Ummm, this topic is about cruisers, not about meson guns and PAWS.

To try to begin moving back there, how often would the various types of cruisers carry such heavy weapons?

Always. The definition of a cruiser from Fighting Ships is:

"Cruisers are the smallest ships to carry the large spinal weapons needed to cause serious damage to a large armored ship, although most are too lightly armored to stand in the line of battle. They form the cadre of commerce raiding task forces and provide fire support for planetary invasions. sizes range from 20,000 to 100,000 tons. Cruisers serving with a battle fleet are generally grouped in CruRons of from four to eight ships, while individual ships or pairs of cruisers are used to form the hard core of scouting or raiding groups." [FS:9]


So if it doesn't have a spinal mount, it's not a cruiser.


Hans

 

[The Oz]

Heck, at the displacement of most cruisers (I think of them as being 20,000 to 100,000 dtons) there's no real reason not to include a spinal mount: it doesn't cost you that much in displacement, you can't use that tonnage to increase your other firepower that much (thanks to the displacement limit on bays and turrets), and you don't get enough jump fuel for another jump, either. About the only thing you can do with the tonnage is add armor.

I can see a case for a "missile cruiser" that has lots of missile bays and uses the extra tonnage from the missing spinal mount to get enough armor to withstand the automatic criticals from big PAWs.

Or maybe use the tonnage to carry extra fighters. At lower TLs fighters are still somewhat useful; but then the ship is a carrier, not a cruiser.

 

[kaladorn]

Doesn't the spinal mount have a huge energy draw, which maps to a much bigger power plant requirement, which maps to a much higher burn rate on fuel, which maps (altogether) to a lot of displacement?

 

[AndreaV]

Originally posted by Jame:
Now, from what I understand, a Cruiser was originally a sail-using vessel (as were most all ships at one point...) that was expected to "cruise" independently for long periods of time. Then the age of steel and steam (later petrol) came and turned them into ships of the air defense formation.

So, how do cruisers work in the OTU or in YTU? And what are the various kinds of cruiser, besides "light," "heavy," "strike," and "battle?"

Also, would a light cruiser normally carry Marines?

Ah yes. The term "cruiser" (along with its close relation "frigate") is one of the most abused naval terms out.

Originally they were (as you have pointed) out ships designed for Cruising (patrolling, showing the flag, colonial policing, keeping the sea lanes open, commerce warfare etc). In the 18th century (with the adoption of the frigate built cruiser) scouting and recconnaisance was added to this.

This "happy" situation continued up until the end of the 1st WW and the subsequent Washington Treaty. The Treaty limited the number of battleships a nation could possess but not the number of cruisers, so the cruiser in most navies (the British being the only exception, holding onto the traditional cruising ship) evolved into a form of second rate battleship, intended to form a line of battle when there weren't any battleships around (the Traveller cruiser appears to be this variant).

Then of course along came the 2nd WW and the demise of the Battleship and the Cruiser has developed to become the mainforce fixed battery surface combat ship in its place (along with picking up some odd roles such as ASW and AAW).

IMTU, cruisers fill the old traditional role of commerce warfare, patrol, showing the flag etc and are the "workhorses" of the fleet. In this role a contingent of Marines would most definitely be appropriate.

 

[Drakon]

I think this might be a workable comprimise.

A cruiser is a military ship designed for independent action. Destroyers, frigates, SDB and other smaller craft, because of their size, cannot do all their own maintenence. A cruiser is designed to perform all its routine maintenence by itself without tenders or starport, and without taking itself offline. (i.e. being able to perform its mission with a single major system offline for maintenence, due to redundancy)

Maintenence comes in a variety of forms, from simple calibration checks of instraments, to tear down and rebuilds of key components. (Again, and probably as always, applying my experience on submarines to the Traveler question) Simple maintenence is usually performed on a weekly basis, while more complex and more mission limiting maintenence is performed more rarely, like yearly or so.

Which means redundant systems, especially jump and manuvering drives, power plants, etc. And also a larger supply of spare parts than would be carried on an SDB.

And also there is the crew to think about. With less demands for external maintenence support, the ship can operate for longer periods of time in the black. Which means that crew accomidations should be more luxurious (if that is the right word), and more spacious, with more recreation facilities.

 

[The Oz]

Originally posted by kaladorn:
Doesn't the spinal mount have a huge energy draw, which maps to a much bigger power plant requirement, which maps to a much higher burn rate on fuel, which maps (altogether) to a lot of displacement?

Yes, it does, especially at lower TLs where the powerplants are proportionally larger. But there's still not much you can do with all that extra tonnage except add armor, and at those lower TLs the armor is also much more massive per factor so you don't get much for your trouble.

If you're using some kind of "missile magazine" rule then the extra tonnage does find a use for a "missile cruiser," but that's about it, I think.

 

[kaladorn]

Uses that come to mind are the missile magazine, fighters and other small craft, marines (especially drop troops) and their craft, and of course, armour.

 

[Jame]

So what's the difference between one 30k-ton normal cruiser and one 30k-ton missile cruiser? Just more missiles and no (or fewer) PAWs?

 

[shield]

Normal cruisers have a spinal mount and a wide distribution of weapon types and screens. All these energy drawing systems mean a bigger power plant and associated fuel, that means a compromise on other ship systems - usually agility, armour, or Jump.

A missile cruiser has large missile bays as its primary weapon (may be with a smaller spinal mount) and less misc energy weapons. This reduces the power requirements and allows heavier armour / better jump / more agility.

The missile cruiser is useful for planetary bombardment or wearing down large ships without adequate armour to withstand nuclear missile bombardment.

Cheers
Richard

 

[The Oz]

Originally posted by Jame:
So what's the difference between one 30k-ton normal cruiser and one 30k-ton missile cruiser? Just more missiles and no (or fewer) PAWs?

Here's the basic data from three test ships, using HGS (thanks again, Andrew!!!!). All these ships have the same secondary weapons (two f-9 laser batteries and 10 f-9 sand batteries), the best nuc dampers and meson screens available, somewhere close to 1% of their tonnage as cargo for basic supplies, Agility-6 and Jump-3 with internal fuel for 3 parsecs, fuel plants and scoops, and four 20-ton launches.

TL-13 30,000 Missile Cruiser
Ship: Missile Test
Class: Unknown
Type: Missile Cruiser
Architect: Osmanski

USP
CM-M1367G3-893300-90008-0 MCr 30,406.876 30 KTons

Cargo: 297.000 Fuel: 11,100.000 EP: 2,100.000 Agility: 6 Ships Troops: 30
Craft: 4 x 20T Launch
Fuel Treatment: Fuel Scoops and On Board Fuel Purification
Backups: 1 x Model/7fib Computer

Architects Fee: MCr 304.069 Cost in Quantity: MCr 24,325.501

This ship has 18 missile bays and factor-8 armor. It also uses up all its hardpoints.

Here the same ship carrying a reasonable PAW.

TL-13 30,000 Particle Cruiser
Ship: Particle Test
Class: Unknown
Type: Particle Cruiser
Architect: Osmanski

USP
CP-M136AG3-093300-90M09-0 MCr 30,842.008 30 KTons

Cargo: 282.000 Fuel: 12,000.000 EP: 3,000.000 Agility: 6 Ships Troops: 30
Craft: 4 x 20T Launch
Fuel Treatment: Fuel Scoops and On Board Fuel Purification
Backups: 1 x Model/7fib Computer

Architects Fee: MCr 308.420 Cost in Quantity: MCr 24,673.606

The Particle Cruiser gets to keep six 50-ton missile bays. It only has factor-1 armor, however.

I was able to get a factor-M PAW into this hull, but that cost the armor and all but one missile bay.

Now for a meson gun.

TL-13 30,000 ton Meson Cruiser
Ship: Meson Test
Class: Unknown
Type: Meson Cruiser
Architect: Osmanski

USP
CU-M136AG3-193300-900F9-0 MCr 31,122.008 30 KTons

Cargo: 275.000 Fuel: 12,000.000 EP: 3,000.000 Agility: 6 Ships Troops: 30
Craft: 4 x 20T Launch
Fuel Treatment: Fuel Scoops and On Board Fuel Purification
Backups: 1 x Model/7fib Computer

Architects Fee: MCr 311.220 Cost in Quantity: MCr 24,897.606


The meson cruiser gets eight 50-ton missile bays in addition to the spinal mount. It also only has factor-1 armor. You could also put a factor-E meson gun into this ship and give up four of the missile bays, getting factor-3 armor in exchange.

The particle cruiser and the meson cruiser have not used up all their hardpoints or their energy points, and could have a few more secondary weapons batteries, if they were willing to give up the cargo space.

The extra armor on the missile cruiser makes it invulnerable to critical hits rolled on the surface damage or radiation tables. It also removes eight of the extra damage rolls big spinal mounts would get, so only factor-J or better particle accelerators would get extra damage rolls.

Most importantly, the armor means the missile cruiser only gets automatic criticals from spinal particle accelerators of factor-S and T, while the beam cruisers take auto criticals from particle accelerators of factor-N (factor-P for the more armored version of the meson cruiser) and up. The armor is of no help against spinal meson guns, of course.

 

[snrdg082102]

Hello the DS,

Sorry for the delay on getting back here, I've been busy elsewhere. Which branch of 3 major branches of Humaniti are you basing the tonnage limits on the Zhodani, Solomani, or Vilani? The Zhodani may use a different size clasification than either the Solomani or Vilani. The Solomani, just for spite, may have changed the designations on their warships?

Even today we have, in theory, established classifications, which has been pointed out, that have been modified by one nation or another to fit their needs or as away around an agreed upon treaty. Under the Treaty of Versailles the German High Seas fleet was not supposed to have a battleship or ships over a certain tonnage. The Bismark and her sister ship effectively broke both.

Even TNE limits the number of spinal mounts, IIRC, to a maximum of 2 for all non-spherical designs, one in the bow and one in the stern. I can't remember how many a sphere can have but I do recall that the design can have more than 2.

Traveller as is allows each of use to decide on the standards we want in our versions of the TU. In YTU the classifications are set down as you and your players want them. If I was gaming in YTU then your ship classification system is what goes. By the same token classifications of the same ships in My TU are different and I hope that those who were in MTU would abide by my system.

Yes, I like your idea, unfortunately I don't agree with the weight limitations or completely agree on the defined functions for each class. But, this is Traveller to to each a TU.

Originally posted by TheDS:
To Tom Rux:

When I read a design sequence, I assume it is for the "norm". In this case, it is for Imperial humans, pre-rebellion. Caveats can be added for K'Kree, who need extensive life support for their own ships, or for robotic ships with hardly any crew, or for dolphins or whatever. WE humans are the standard against whichwecompare everything else, and this will be true even if we come across a "superior" species. That'sjust how we are, and it's how we understand things;wecompare them to ourselves, because that's a common frame of reference.

Therefore, when we go ahead and DECLARE that a 10,000 ton ship is a cruiser, that's all there is to it. A Hiver can say all he wants about his ships in his empire. WE will call his ship a Cruiser. We MIGHT make special allowances for K'kree or anything else that disrupts convention so drastically, but they will have small robotic craft which will be MORE powerful ton-for-ton than ours, or they may make a slave race take care of things for them. That's who's in the engineering spaces, I imagine.

But a standard is just that; a standard. WE apply it to everything, or it's not a standard.

Regarding the Spinal Mount issue AND the space combat issue:

I just today found my Ref Manual and perused through it and reminded myself why I hate the MT way of doing things. There's some good ideas, but I hate the generalities of the system. I would imagine CT-based solutions are the same morass of "what's this do" and handwaving.

In MT, you have a selection of spinal mounts pregenerated to choose from. Really, there's no reason a big enough ship COULDN'T mount several of them, but as a T-gun is the best you can get at TL15, there's little point in building something bigger than whatever is needed for that gun. Something around 25,000-75,000 tons iirc. Anything bigger is just an easier target and carries a ton of little weapons that can't really do anything to a big ship.

However, in TNE, you are able to get a better level of detail on your ship. One thing mentioned was that you have a length attribute. Wht wasn't really mentioned, though, was that the length of a spinal mount plays an important role in how far the gun shoots AND in the amount of damage it can impart. It makes sense to build a megaton ship, which has a needle config, and makes the ship 900m long. That weapon will be capable of hitting targets so far away that nothng can respond to it. Additionally, it will batter down just about any defense.

The only response is to either build equally gigantic ships, mirroring the battleship anti-escalation treaties before each World War, or to make lots of little things that can get close enough to hurt it without being seen or shot.

In MT, a gigantic missile salvo is worthless against a big ship. In TNE, it's devestating. In MT, PAWS and Meson guns can be mounted into bays, in TNE, they're really not effective. most targets are going to have a basic meson screen and sme armor to protect against them. So you HAVE to make large spinal mounts.

In the original TNE rules, you could make a giant laser that would render giant PAWS and mesons unnecessary. A big laser goes right through armor and sand like it's not there, and can fire at very high rates, giving really good bonuses to hit. The answer was to impose a limit on laser power, basically religating them to turrets.

But anyway, the design and operation of your ship will depend on the rules you use. The two systems are not compatible. I personally prefer the TNE system, because it lets me make whatever I want, using a fairly consistent rules system, instead of relying on some one else's handwaves. For instance, I have found it's generally a good idea to use a meson gun as your spinal mount and a PAWS as a parallel mount. The PAWS can be beefed up to fire very rapidly with little increase in size, and it fires at extreme range. The meson gun needs all the length it can get to have a decent range. The downside is that the PAWS needs length to do more damage, while the Meson gun doesn't suffer that problem. So you pop on them with the PAWS at long range, and anything that survives gets popped with the meson gun at short range. You keep smaller ships near to defend against missiles and fighters.

 

[TheDS]

All I'm saying is, in this game, one must decide for oneself what one wants. If you think 10,000 tons does not a cruiser make, then you're going to decide whatever you want. I, on the other hand, will decide on standards I like, and because they are standards, I will stick to them. This does not invalidate YOUR designs for YOUR standards, but when you and I compare ship designs, if your design meets certain criteria I have set forth as being something, I will label it such. I imagine you will do the same to my designs, assuming you make a standard.

The way I define ship classes depends greatly on what people think of when the term is evoked. "Destroyer" evokes an image of a small, fast ship without a lot of firepower. "Battleship" evokes images of large, well armored, heavily armed, pondering craft. "Cruiser" is somewhere in the middle. Now if we go and use qualifiers, like "missile" and "colonial" and stuff like that, well, we have to define what that means a little more. "Colonial" might not evoke the same image in your mind as it does mine. Our definitions also depend on how the rules interpret our designs. 4 G might be fast in one system, and painfully slow in another, and unimaginably fast in a third.

The term "spinal mount" implies that there can be only one. The spine of a spaceship is its major structural member, like the keel is the major structural member of a wet ship. It bears all the weight, and defines an axis of balance.

Any further mounts cannot be spinal. They CAN be parallel. The book says they can be up to 80% of the ship's length, but clever people such as you and I can always find ways to break such simplistic rules. A sphere can have lots of parallel mounts mounted in all directions. The usefulness of such designs will depend on the level of detail possible in the combat rules used. Most would find them useless, but others would find them indispensible.

Of course, there is an exception to the "only 1" spinal mount, and that is the "Janus" mount, which has two spinal mounts butted up against each other, one firing straight ahead and one firing straight back.

So as I said before, being a Sci-fi games means we have to (or get to) define WHAT exactly a cruiser is, and we can make it a standard. And since the common frame of reference is the Imperial Human in this game, well, I'll let YOU decide if that means Vilani or Solomani or something else entirely. Stragnely, though, when I look around, I've never seen any humans besides Solomani... We have to start somewhere, even if it seems a little egocentric.

If anyone doesn't like that, then I suggest s/he come up with your own systems of measurement. KM, second, KL, Kelvin, Degree of angle, AU, Year, KG, Hertz, Watt, base-10 numbers,.... All those are humanocentric. If you want to be REALLY standard, base stuff on the frequency of hydrogen, the speed of light, binary, pi, and anything else that clearly is universal.

 

[snrdg082102]

To TheDS,

Sir, as I mentioned in my CotI private message I shall post no more on this topic since I have apparently irrated you with my insistant and seemingly mistaken position on your suggestion of standardzing warship classification by tonnage and mission capability, which was not my intent. With that said I also offer my apologies for the inconvenience I may have caused.

Final comment: Understood.

Originally posted by TheDS:
All I'm saying is, in this game, one must decide for oneself what one wants. If you think 10,000 tons does not a cruiser make, then you're going to decide whatever you want. I, on the other hand, will decide on standards I like, and because they are standards, I will stick to them. This does not invalidate YOUR designs for YOUR standards, but when you and I compare ship designs, if your design meets certain criteria I have set forth as being something, I will label it such. I imagine you will do the same to my designs, assuming you make a standard.

The way I define ship classes depends greatly on what people think of when the term is evoked. "Destroyer" evokes an image of a small, fast ship without a lot of firepower. "Battleship" evokes images of large, well armored, heavily armed, pondering craft. "Cruiser" is somewhere in the middle. Now if we go and use qualifiers, like "missile" and "colonial" and stuff like that, well, we have to define what that means a little more. "Colonial" might not evoke the same image in your mind as it does mine. Our definitions also depend on how the rules interpret our designs. 4 G might be fast in one system, and painfully slow in another, and unimaginably fast in a third.

The term "spinal mount" implies that there can be only one. The spine of a spaceship is its major structural member, like the keel is the major structural member of a wet ship. It bears all the weight, and defines an axis of balance.

Any further mounts cannot be spinal. They CAN be parallel. The book says they can be up to 80% of the ship's length, but clever people such as you and I can always find ways to break such simplistic rules. A sphere can have lots of parallel mounts mounted in all directions. The usefulness of such designs will depend on the level of detail possible in the combat rules used. Most would find them useless, but others would find them indispensible.

Of course, there is an exception to the "only 1" spinal mount, and that is the "Janus" mount, which has two spinal mounts butted up against each other, one firing straight ahead and one firing straight back.

So as I said before, being a Sci-fi games means we have to (or get to) define WHAT exactly a cruiser is, and we can make it a standard. And since the common frame of reference is the Imperial Human in this game, well, I'll let YOU decide if that means Vilani or Solomani or something else entirely. Stragnely, though, when I look around, I've never seen any humans besides Solomani... We have to start somewhere, even if it seems a little egocentric.

If anyone doesn't like that, then I suggest s/he come up with your own systems of measurement. KM, second, KL, Kelvin, Degree of angle, AU, Year, KG, Hertz, Watt, base-10 numbers,.... All those are humanocentric. If you want to be REALLY standard, base stuff on the frequency of hydrogen, the speed of light, binary, pi, and anything else that clearly is universal.

 

[TheDS]

Actually - this is quite funny to me - the only irritation I am suffering because of you is that you think I am irritated because of you!

To all: As many of us who have been around the web for a while know, and is not necessarily apparent to EVERYONE, text is not an easy medium for conveying feelings. It is easy to misunderstand some one who is stating his opinion and think he is instead yelling at you.

Please do not EVER assume people are mad at YOU. Places like this are here so we can ALL express our opinions and learn something that apart, we could not.

If some one is so wrapped up in themselves that they cannot accept some one else's view and must resort to something as unfashionable as name calling or personal attacks, they are not interested in learning anything.

All of you here are trying to learn something. No one has launched any attacks on anyone, or claimed that anyone is too stupid to know a cruiser from a hole in the ground, so no one should be feeling upset about anything. If anyone is, take a step back, and maybe in an hour or two, re-read the post that you think is against you, and maybe you will read it with a different tone in your head and realize that the tone was all in YOUR head.

I am sorry to ANYONE who has felt that I am attacking or otherwise riding on them. I am about as subtle as a nuclear blast, so if I am attacking you, there will not be a shred of doubt in your head. I seriously doubt anyone is attacking anyone on this board, considering how polite everyone is. Maybe I should emulate Larsen and "sir" everyone?

 

[kaladorn]

TheDS, well said. Thick skin (or at least the willingness to consider that maybe the tone you hear isn't the one intended) should be de rigeur for web boards. And I didn't think you meant any harm, though I can (if I stretch), see where Tom might have thought so.

And as to the "Sir", I prefer "His Most Inestimable Majesty" or "His Most Awesomeness", though my peers might argue the prefix should be "That Dork..." or "His Laziness....".

 

[snrdg082102]

Hello TheDS,

I once again have apprently mis-interpreted what was being said, for that I do apologize for. However, the last line of my October 31, 2003 12:34 AM post I made a similar statement as you about setting the standards in a GM and players TU. At least some good has come out of this, which appears to be some stress relief That will be Cr25 for medical services rendered. Er, no forget it I don't have a license to practice medicine anyway.

Originally posted by TheDS:
All I'm saying is, in this game, one must decide for oneself what one wants. If you think 10,000 tons does not a cruiser make, then you're going to decide whatever you want. I, on the other hand, will decide on standards I like, and because they are standards, I will stick to them. This does not invalidate YOUR designs for YOUR standards, but when you and I compare ship designs, if your design meets certain criteria I have set forth as being something, I will label it such. I imagine you will do the same to my designs, assuming you make a standard.

The way I define ship classes depends greatly on what people think of when the term is evoked. "Destroyer" evokes an image of a small, fast ship without a lot of firepower. "Battleship" evokes images of large, well armored, heavily armed, pondering craft. "Cruiser" is somewhere in the middle. Now if we go and use qualifiers, like "missile" and "colonial" and stuff like that, well, we have to define what that means a little more. "Colonial" might not evoke the same image in your mind as it does mine. Our definitions also depend on how the rules interpret our designs. 4 G might be fast in one system, and painfully slow in another, and unimaginably fast in a third.

The term "spinal mount" implies that there can be only one. The spine of a spaceship is its major structural member, like the keel is the major structural member of a wet ship. It bears all the weight, and defines an axis of balance.

Any further mounts cannot be spinal. They CAN be parallel. The book says they can be up to 80% of the ship's length, but clever people such as you and I can always find ways to break such simplistic rules. A sphere can have lots of parallel mounts mounted in all directions. The usefulness of such designs will depend on the level of detail possible in the combat rules used. Most would find them useless, but others would find them indispensible.

Of course, there is an exception to the "only 1" spinal mount, and that is the "Janus" mount, which has two spinal mounts butted up against each other, one firing straight ahead and one firing straight back.

So as I said before, being a Sci-fi games means we have to (or get to) define WHAT exactly a cruiser is, and we can make it a standard. And since the common frame of reference is the Imperial Human in this game, well, I'll let YOU decide if that means Vilani or Solomani or something else entirely. Stragnely, though, when I look around, I've never seen any humans besides Solomani... We have to start somewhere, even if it seems a little egocentric.

If anyone doesn't like that, then I suggest s/he come up with your own systems of measurement. KM, second, KL, Kelvin, Degree of angle, AU, Year, KG, Hertz, Watt, base-10 numbers,.... All those are humanocentric. If you want to be REALLY standard, base stuff on the frequency of hydrogen, the speed of light, binary, pi, and anything else that clearly is universal.

 

[snrdg082102]

Evening His Most Inestimable & most Awesomeness Majesty sir,

I am most humbly chastised at improperly addressing you in past posts. However, since I am just a lowly submarine sailor I think I'll stick with the less formal address of kaladorn. Easier to type don't you know.

Originally posted by kaladorn:
TheDS, well said. Thick skin (or at least the willingness to consider that maybe the tone you hear isn't the one intended) should be de rigeur for web boards. And I didn't think you meant any harm, though I can (if I stretch), see where Tom might have thought so.

And as to the "Sir", I prefer "His Most Inestimable Majesty" or "His Most Awesomeness", though my peers might argue the prefix should be "That Dork..." or "His Laziness....".